What do flashbacks do

Obscurity is not necessarily failure, though; I am a bird artist, and have more or less made a living at it. Yet I murdered the lighthouse keeper, Botho August, and that is an equal part of how I think of myself. Norman begins the narrative in the present and introduces the reader to Fabian, a character who is a bird artist but also a murderer. Such a shocking introduction then smoothly launches us into the past, where the story of the artist as a young boy begins.

Beginning in the present with an admission of murder and then launching into a peaceful past creates suspense, as the reader wants to know why or how Fabian has become a murderer. It also serves to give Fabian a backstory. Flashback is an important aspect of many movies, television shows, and songs. Flashback serves to provide a backstory for characters, explaining how they have come to be how they are now.

They also serve to complicate plots by interrupting the linear narrative. This scene in itself employs flashback when the Grinch remembers his teacher advising children to dress well and bullies making fun of him.

The movie We Are Marshall uses a flashback in the seconds before a triumphant win for Marshall, the audience remembers the struggles the football team had to go through to finally come back together after a plane crash tragically killed the majority of the team and coaches. This painful but ultimately joyful flashback emotionally charges the victory scene.

Flash-forward, also known as prolepsis, is the rhetorical device in which a chronological narrative is interrupted and launched forward in time. Flash-forward is the opposite of flashback, as it shows events in the future or imagined future rather than in the past. Both devices, though, serve to tell more about a story and to interrupt the linear narrative.

Blake meets Sarah at a bookstore. What he does not know is that one day she will become his girlfriend. Upon seeing her, he is launched into a childhood memory of a similar girl, a childhood crush, with brunette hair and blue eyes. The flash-forward provides us with the knowledge that Blake and Sarah will eventually begin a relationship together.

The flashback, on the other hand, shows us why Blake was first attracted to her—she reminds him of a childhood crush. Flashback is an essential aspect of plot which allows the chronological narrative to be interrupted by information and memories from the past. It can provide stories with background information, characters with personality development, and plots with more complicated structures. Flashback reveals the importance of the past and its ongoing effect on the present.

List of Terms Action. Therefore, the love story between Heathcliff and Catherine is developed through flashback as Nelly Dean tells their love story. Time has no limits on love, especially in Wuthering Heights. When Peeta is called to the podium, she distinctly remembers Peeta giving her the bread when her family was starving.

This created an instant connection between these two characters that led them through the entire series. Not only does Katniss feed him because he fed her, but she never gives up on the boy with the bread. Bella was pretty sleuthy when it came to figuring out Edward was a vampire in Twilight. However, this might not have been possible without flashbacks.

Bella connects all her odd moments with Edward through a flashback of Jacob and her on the beach talking about the cold ones. It helps the reader to put all the pieces together and give context to the moment. The famous classic, The Outsiders , also uses flashback in chapter 2 to give us insight into Johnny and why he always carries a knife. Through Ponyboy's telling of the story, the reader learns what happened to Johnny and how he almost died, as well as his rival with the Socs.

This flashback works to give insight into the character and understand his motivation a bit further. As you can see through the flashback examples, flashback is an important tool writers use to weave their story. Not only does it give the reader more insight into the characters, but it provides context for a situation. It can also be pivotal in figuring out key clues like in Twilight. This excerpt from F. Much of the first chapter occurs in flashback as the narrator Nick Carraway thinks about what has brought him to the East Coast and how out-of-place he feels there.

At that time Macondo was a village of twenty adobe houses, built on the bank of a river of clear water that ran along a bed of polished stones, which were white and enormous, like prehistoric eggs.

The world was so recent that many things lacked names, and in order to indicate them it was necessary to point. This is another example of flashback that occurs as the opening line of a novel. We know that later in the book he will face a firing squad, and we also know that his life seems to predate history. When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.

She landed on the office floor, bounded once across the office, and soared out of the window. Dumbledore watched her fly away, and as her silvery glow faded he turned back to Snape, and his eyes were full of tears. This is one of many examples of flashback from J. In the final book Rowling must fill in a lot of information about many events that occurred before Harry was even alive. She does this in an ingenious way. Which of the following statements is the best flashback definition? A device in which time is moved forward from the present moment.